Review of the Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet

Happy Tablet Eve from the Boogie Board

The Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet was announced by Improv Electronics on Friday. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Boogie Board is a monochrome LCD screen that has resistive pressure sensitivity which allows you to write on the screen as if it were paper. When you’re done simply press the erase button and it clears the screen within a second or two. Think of it as an electronic Magna Doodle or dry erase board that costs a very reasonable $30.

We already know the Boogie Board is popular — it sold out in America within hours and worldwide in two days (Improv Electronics says they’ll have more in stock early next month). So far most internet criticism surrounds the lack of any recordable method. While that’s true with this version of the Boogie Board, we contacted Improv Electronics and they said they were working on a recordable version that uses a SD card to record and USB to transfer to a computer. They expect to have it for sale by the end of the year and estimate it will be around $50.

While this version of the Boogie Board is the size of a small notepad or the horizontal half of a letter sized sheet of paper, Improv Electronics is working on a larger legal pad size with recording capability. They are focused on bringing this product into the school system and have it replace traditional legal pad and five subject notebooks. To facilitate this, they are working to include clear templates that would help students practice their handwriting and number skills and even exploring a Boogie Board that would recognize handwriting and convert it to text.

Their goals are extremely admirable and, after playing with the Boogie Board for a while, we feel quite achievable. Now on to the review.

Packaging
The packaging for the Boogie Board is compact and simple. It has a fold out flab that allows you to see the entire board and test it yourself with your fingernail. There is a cut in showing the stainless steel telescoping stylus and plenty of information on potential uses printed on the sides. Upon opening you will find the Boogie Board resting on a cardboard insert along with a screen wiper cloth and instructions. Surprisingly there’s absolutely no plastic elements to any of the packaging which means its very easy to toss into the paper recycling bin once opened.

Build Quality
The Boogie Board is very compact and thin, especially the screen/writing surface which is only 1/8th of an inch thick. It’s surprisingly sturdy and despite being so thin, is mounted to a very rigid piece of plastic. You can bend it slightly when you try, but any thoughts of it being fragile or possibly snapped in half are forgotten as soon as you pick it up. The top part of the board (where its innards and erase button is found) is twice as thick, but again is made out of rigid plastic. It has a decent amount of weight — nothing heavy, but enough that makes it comfortable to your hand. Any lighter and there would be the worry of it possibly blowing away.

The included stylus has a simple but sturdy build as well. It certainly isn’t bendy or fragile like the Archos 9 stylus. It’s 4.5 inches in compact form and 6.5 inches when expanded. It’s easy to write with and comfortable to hold. The only small criticism is that it could have a finer point to allow for smaller writing. Still, the stylus point is smaller than, say, a Nintendo DS stylus.

Function
The pressure sensitivity of the Boogie Board is apparent as soon as you start using it. You can easily draw small chicken scratch lines by lightly brushing the surface. Conversely you can draw fine, wide lines with firm pressure. Coloring in solid parts of green is easy and there is no black parts if you go over it finely with a stylus.

Still, size is an issue. After performing a few handwriting tests we estimate that you can legibly fit 70-100 words on the screen. That might be enough space for a short meeting or to scribble a few notes on, but the lack of saving a screen means you won’t have much use for this in a business environment. We imagine if you had a finer stylus point you could increase the word count to 100-130 but that’s still rather limited.

Click for larger view

The only thing that really bothered us is that the screen picks up pressure from your knuckles. As you can see in the photo, you will have slight hand marks when drawing if you place your hand on the tablet as if you were writing naturally. With a bit of practice we were able to minimize the marks or even hover our hand above the board, but it was hardly natural. Skin contact doesn’t register unless there’s pressure placed behind it. This is also true when using the cloth to clean the screen — and you will be using it to clean the screen. It doesn’t register fingerprints, but it does show smudges after repeated use.

The erase button is simple and fast. The screen will flash a few times and clear itself in about a second. There is no removable battery or easy way to access the tablet’s internals, but considering the battery will last for 50,000 clears we can’t imagine ever needing to. Some complained about that, but the truth is even with heavy use you’re looking a years of function from this device. How many $30 products can that be said for?

What we’d like to see
There’s no doubt that lacking an ability to record what you write on screen limits the device. We’re looking forward to the next version that allows that. With it, the Boogie Board could morph from fun little device to office or school necessity. What would be even better would be a way to access previous screens and display them again on the tablet. For instance, if you wanted to access the previous page, simply flick up on the screen and the previous screen appears as you last modified it. We think that would make this a fantastic, must-have gadget.

You’re also continually conscious of the Boogie Board’s small size when writing. They are coming out with a legal pad size which would be just about perfect. Improv Electronics has received feedback from teachers that say the same thing.

Finally, we don’t know if it’s possible with the current technology, but we’d like to see the sensitivity increased so writing hand ghosting is eliminated.

Conclusion
The Boogie Board Paperless LCD Writing Tablet is a huge step in a very interesting direction. If you do any type of doodling or find yourself always reaching for the nearest pad to scribble down a quick idea then this is a very easy purchase. We even gave it to a three year old to test for a while and it kept her thoroughly entertained for a solid twenty minutes. For a parent, those 20 minutes would be worth the $30 all by itself. If you’re looking at the Boogie Board for a more official capacity, wait until the recordable version. Still, at such a low price point, it’s fun to just have around.